


Monstrous Appetites

by starforged



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen, Hunger Games AU, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-05-13 03:51:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5693512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starforged/pseuds/starforged
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey has always been invisible, until she's Reaped. Until she gets noticed by the one person she doesn't want to be noticed by. Kylo Ren of District 1 is a threat. He's dangerous, powerful, and the one person standing in the way of her life, unless his offer for an alliance and a way for them to both win the Games isn't a lie.</p><p>But she can trust someone as volatile as he is?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**i.**

Nobody is safe. Rey has known that for as long as her name has been going into the draw. She stands in the back of the crowd of other girls in the district, clothes rumpled and slightly dirty, her hair in the same style it has been since she was five, while everyone else in front of her is wearing their best, freshly cleaned and pressed and hair done with loving hands.

She stares forward and watches the people on the stage. Han Solo sits there with the same aloof expression he always seems to wear during the Reaping. They live in the same district, but Rey’s only ever heard stories of him. He’s a legend that never seems to stay put, and she wonders how much of those stories are just that. Everyone likes to tell a good tale, and she has nobody that she trusts to tell her the truth about these things.

Nobody is safe from the Reaping, not even someone as heroic as Han Solo, as clever as Leia Organa, as brave as Luke Skywalker.

And also, apparently, little nobody orphans whose name has only ever been in a glass bowl _once_.

It takes her a second to realize they’ve called her name not once, but twice now. Three times, and the Peacekeepers in their shiny white helmets are scooping her up with their hands at her armpits, fingers tightly gripping her. She almost fights.

 _Almost_. But then she remembers that the fighting needs to be done in the arena, because that’s where she’s going, and she’s finally getting out of District 12 with its dust and coal and hunger and loneliness so that she can die.

**ii.**

Nobody visits her before they board the train.

**iii.**

The boy from her district is a few years younger than her, a kid named Owen. Rey doesn’t know what to say to him, and when she comes closer to hug him, to comfort this crying child, he runs away from her. Her shoulders slump.

A Peacekeeper stands across the room from her, watching. Her lip curls up in disgust before she turns on her heel and stomps into the dining car.

Han Solo is already there, feet kicked up on a coffee table, a drink in his hand. “Hey, kid. Want some?”

“I don’t understand.”

He stares at her, stares at the drink. His brow furrows. “It’s Corellian brandy, what is there to understand?”

She perches herself in a chair across from him, sitting on the very edge. This man is a hero to her. A fairy tale come to life. “Everything.”

There was a rebellion, and President Palpatine was taken out of power with the help of _him_. But the Hunger Games never really went away with President Snoke, whose regime looked exactly like the old one.

Han gives her an echo of a smirk, hollow as it is. “I’ve been trying to figure that one out myself, kid, for the last couple of decades.”

“It’s Rey,” she corrects.

“Well, Rey, I hope you have what it takes.”

Han stops talking, then, and she falls into silence with him. It’s easy. She doesn’t talk with people a lot as it is, and besides that, what else is there to say? She hopes that she has what it takes, too? She hopes she can ignore a crying boy and other crying children?

The Peacekeeper from earlier walks Owen to his room, and her shoulders tense up. She’s ready to pounce. Hasn’t the boy had enough?

But she notices that the Peacekeeper’s arm is around his shoulders and he’s hugging the boy to his side as they walk.

He looks over his shoulder at her, and she relaxes. His smile is soft and sad before his focus switches back to Owen.

  **iv.**

The crowds are insane. She has never seen so many people in her life, a blur of colors and screaming and strangeness. Flat faces, long faces, surgically engineered snouts that she doesn’t quite understand. One man has eyes like a fly’s. They yell her name.

_Rey Rey Rey Rey Rey Rey_

Nobody has ever quite said her name so many times before. So loudly. With need.

She doesn’t like it. She knows why they want her, and she would rather go back to being unknown. In a few days, they will forget about her as easily as they’ve forgotten about Owen already. District 12 is never a fan favorite, and their initial outburst is the excitement of the games.

She holds herself, hands on her elbows _._ Han steps up next to her, a hand on her shoulder briefly.

“You should wave to them, kid.”

“What’s the point?”

“To win.”

She can’t argue with that, and Rey swallows down the sigh that threatens to escape her. She lifts a hand and gives the smallest of waves from the window after Han has walked away. The crowd screams more, they slam into each other.

She feels sick to her stomach and wonders if she’s as green as she’s experiencing right now. Han disappears from the train, and she’s left staring at the space he’s occupied before. Somewhere on this train, Owen is waiting to depart too. Nobody cheers for the children, the younger ones. She steps away from the window, her eyes wide. If she can’t get herself together, she doesn’t know what she’ll do. But she won’t cry in front of these people, she won’t let them begin crafting the sad story of her life.

“You should also smile,” comes a soft whisper from behind.

She whips around to confront the Peacekeeper that’s been a strange part of their entourage.

“Excuse me?” Her voice is more sharp with him than it was with Han. Han has lived the Games. What does this man know of anything?

“Smiling. That thing, you know. You tug your lips up and sometimes show teeth, it sets people at ease. I mean, it sets _me_ at ease, at least.”

She blinks at him, dumbstruck. Why would he need to be put at ease? He’s the one in the mask here, part of the system that’s sending her to her death. Her brow furrows, and there’s an intense irritation that borders on anger burrowing into her chest. “Why don’t _you_ smile then?” A huff escapes her lips.

“Well… I’m not really the one who has to be liked.”

His head moves in a jerking fashion, and she’s assuming he means to indicate the swarm outside. After a second, he removes the helmet, and she’s surprised to see, well, him. Monsters in masks have haunted the nightmares of plenty of kids in the districts, but putting a face to some of the more elite Peacekeepers is strange indeed. He’s young, not much older than her really. And she wonders how it is that he’s risen through the ranks in this way. She wonders what he’s done and finds it hard to believe that a face like him, carved with caring and innocence over every inch of it, is a Peacekeeper to begin with. His full mouth is generous when he smiles, and it does put her at ease.

Rey does not want to be at ease with him. He is, essentially, the enemy.

She’s sure Han would tell her everyone is the enemy, but right now, this guy definitely is it.

“And what would you know about tributes and what they need to do to be liked?” She is still sharp when she speaks, but it’s more forced now than when it was earlier.

He should just put the damn helmet on.

“I have this friend. A _pretty good_ one. He won, once.”

It’s a strange concept to her, that a Victor would be friends with a Peacekeeper, and she must look skeptical to him because he laughs nervously.

“We’re not really allowed to be friends in public, for a lot of reasons. You’ll meet him, maybe.”

Maybe if she wins, she assumes he’s thinking. He gives her a forlorn glance and knows her own thought is correct. But if his friend has won and they have talked about the things it takes to stay alive in this thing, maybe it’s not so bad to take some advice.

“I’m Rey,” she finally tells him.

His smile is another of those tension easing kind. “I know. It’s all over the screens. I’m Finn.”

“I hope… Maybe I’ll see you around, Finn. You seem like a good guy.” She remembers his arm around Owen’s shoulders and the sad look on his face then and now.

“You will. I’m assigned to your floor.”

When she steps off the train, she smiles at the crowd and waves again, following after tiny Owen who attempts the same. The people of the Capitol roar in appreciation.

  **v.**

“You did a good job out there, kid,” Han tells her later that night in the sitting area of their floor suites. Owen’s already been shuffled off to bed, ready to start part of his own journey in the morning.

Rey makes a face at her mentor. “Rey. Arr - ee - why. Rey.”

He grins, and it’s every inch the smug rogue people said he was during his own games. It doesn’t have the calming effect that Finn’s smiles have on her. Instead, his cause a bit of nervousness to flit around in her nerves, for her heart to patter a little faster in her chest. She grins back despite herself, nose wrinkling a bit with giddiness.

“Rey,” he concedes with his hands up.

“Do I have any chances?”

The look on his face says so much without saying anything at all. But there’s something more to it, a hollowness in his eyes that she doesn’t understand. Is it because there’s no point in helping her and Owen? Is it because there is and it won’t matter?

He rubs a hand over his face and lets out a laugh that sounds as hollow as his stare. “You have chances. I haven’t seen you in practice yet, I can’t say I know what your skills are, but there’s something in you that I haven’t seen since an old friend.”

Her head tilts and her smile turns more curious than excited. “Which old friend?”

“Luke Skywalker.”


	2. Chapter 2

**i.**

Her stylist is perhaps one of the most put-together people she has ever met. She introduces herself to Rey as Maz Kanata with a firm handshake and broad smile. But as soon as she drops Rey’s hand, she’s already adjusting the strange glasses she’s wearing, the lens growing thicker, her dark eyes growing almost too large for her face. It’s incredibly unsettling, but even it’s worse when she starts getting poked and prodded by Maz’s assistants. 

“Yes, yes,” Maz mutters to herself. An assistant brings her a step ladder, and she climbs it so that she’s more level with Rey. “You are a vision.”

“I am?” Rey glances at the others before her attention focuses back on Maz and the way her fingers are touching her face now. Those are words not generally associated with Rey. At all. Ever. Especially pre-makeover. Something about that sounds a little wrong.

“I have worked with many tributes in my day,” Maz tells her as her fingers begin plucking at her hair. She has to visibly remain still.

She doesn’t want her hair to change. She doesn’t want this strange woman touching it. 

But she has to, Rey reminds herself. This is her job, to sell her. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” the stylist whispers.

Her eyebrows rise up on her forehead. “I’m thinking a lot of things. I don’t even know where you’d begin with that one.”

It’s probably not an answer that Maz was expecting. She’s worked with a lot of tributes, after all Most of them are probably snappish, angry, violent, scared. Not that Rey isn’t scared out of her mind, but she doesn’t see the point in being someone that she isn’t. Maz throws her head back and laughs; the sound is so soft and gentle in comparison to her body language.

“You are wondering what it is I see in you. And I will tell you.”

The assistants begin to undress Rey after her hair is taken down, after Maz climbs back down her ladder. Her arms cross over her nude body, her face flushing hot at the idea of anyone else actually seeing her this way. 

“What I see in you is the same fire I have seen in others like you. You are a fighter, but not the kind that our _esteemed_ president likes to see.” Maz takes Rey’s hand in her small one and leads her to the bath tub. “You are not a killer.”

“I don’t think that’s actually helpful. The Games--”

Her smile is sad. “We all must sometimes do things we cannot stomach in order to commit to the greater good.”

The water is warm and envelops Rey as she slides into it. The assistants are rougher with her than Maz is when they begin to scrub and pull and rip. It’s not a process that she ever wants to go through again.

**ii.**

Immediately, Rey recognizes what she looks like when Maz parades her in front of the mirror. Her hair is a little shorter than what she would like, brushing over her shoulders, but it had been a compromise between the closer cropped hair that Maz wanted to give her. She wears tan and white, like the sands that nearly swallow up her home, a belt around her waist with the typical tools of the miners.

Rey looks like Luke Skywalker did in his Games.

That’s not mildly terrifying at all. 

“Maz.”

“The crows will love it.” Her tongue clucks. “There’s something missing, but there will be time enough for that, I think.”

“What?”

Rey tears her eyes from her own image. It’s strange to look at herself right now. How her skin glows from the scrubbing, how soft she looks, how _young_. How like Luke Skywalker, an uncomfortable comparison now. Han had said it last night, too, and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

He was a hero, but he was the kind of hero that you could only worship in the quiet. He was a myth that couldn’t be spoken, not in the new regime under Snoke. 

And besides all that, he was a hero who had left District 13 behind. What else was out there in Panem for him to find? Where could he have gone? The rumor was that he had been quietly executed, but Rey didn’t believe that one.

No, it seemed more likely that Snoke would want that televised, to make them more pliable. With the previous hero of the previous downfall of President Palpatine dead, there would be no hope.

She smoothed down an invisible wrinkle as she faced Maz. 

“How do you feel?”

“Really confused,” Rey admits.

“Good. He was confused for a long time, too.”

**iii.**

Han laughs when he sees her, rubbing his hand over his jaw like he can’t really believe it. “Maz really knows her stuff.”

“You didn’t talk to her about this?” Rey had hopes that maybe, just _maybe_ , he had influenced her stylist. Not that she really thinks that Han could, but it would make more sense.

“This?” He indicates her with a sweep of his hand. “This is all Maz. Like I said, she knows her stuff. She’s the best of the best.” He leans in then, his voice barely a whisper. “I had to pull a few strings to get her assigned to you, if I can be honest here.”

“Why?” Her brow furrows, and she tugs on her outer tunic in the hopes that it’ll sit more comfortably on here. 

“Because making you look like an old hero will light a few fires under some sponsors. Quite a few of those assholes out there, they love Luke still.”

It also makes her a target to the other tributes. Han doesn’t say that out loud, but he doesn’t need to. They already know this.

She presses her lips together, unable to say anything else. Why did they pick her for this? What do they see in her that makes them think of Luke? She’s not the rebellious type. She’s not going to fight back, not going to win a war and stop President Snoke. She’s going to go into the Hunger Games with her head held high and likely die at some point. 

Her and Owen are reunited in time for them to step into their carriage together. He looks more like a kid playing pretend at adult, soot covering his entire face, his clothes. His stylist didn’t even seem to try, and they look at odds with each other. Light and dark.

“Hi,” she whispers, her lips tugging up in a smile.

He watches her carefully. There’s a resignation in his eyes that no kid should have already. Like he knows he’s going to die and there’s really no point to it all. “I like what they did with you.” 

“I think I’d rather look like I rolled around in mine dust.”

“We can always switch really quick, if you want?”

They both smile at each other now. 

**iv.**

The parade is nothing like how Rey expects it to be. She knew it was pageantry; years of watching it has taught her this. But it doesn’t teach you about the nervous bubble that forms in your stomach or the way sweat clings to you like a second skin. It doesn’t teach about the deafening roars of the crowd and the whispers that aren’t exactly whispers because she can hear the words bursting through the Capitol like a breeze in the sand. It doesn’t teach you that every face, every name called out in the 11 carriages before her that these are the very people who have come to take her life away.

She watches on the giant screen as they focus in on the face of Kylo Ren and his co-tribute as their horse draws them forward. The girl’s face is blank, hard. She is nothing but focus, and Rey can’t even recall her name.

But Kylo Ren is different. He’s angry, and it ripples over his face even on the screen.

He’s different because everyone knows that he’s the son of Leia Organa, unsurprisingly caught up in the mess of the Hunger Games.

The others trudge along ahead of her and Owen, but it’s Kylo’s face that sticks out. The scowl, the glare, the harsh lines of his young face. 

She doesn’t want to think about him, but she goes to bed that night with him still on her mind.


	3. Chapter 3

**i.**

It’s about an hour and a half later before she decides that she can’t actually sleep. She dozed for a few minutes, but there’s too much on her mind. Better to be awake and able to focus on something that isn’t the face of Kylo Ren. Running her fingers through her shorter hair, she crawls out of bed and sleepily makes her way to the door of the hotel.

Finn is where he says he’ll be, but she’s smart enough to know that they can’t actually talk. Not with the cameras. Right? She stands in the doorway of her suite and stares down at the end of the hall at him until he must get the feeling that he’s being watched.

She imagines the smile he’s probably wearing behind that mask, slow and sweet. It’s not a smile that belongs to a Peacekeeper.

His fingers twitch in her direction. More than once. She tilts her head at him, one brow arching as it happens again. 

And then his hand moves more frantically. 

And then a hissing whisper of her name, “Rey.”

_“Rey.”_

“Are you signaling me?”

“Keep your voice down and come on.”

Part of her wants to look at the cameras, but that might be a little bit too obvious. So instead she presses her lips together and follows after the Peacekeeper. They slip into a stairwell, and she finds herself being led up to the roof. 

A breath catches in her throat at the view the top of the building offers her, the twinkling lights that sprawl over the city. She’s always loved the view of the stars, but this is different. It’s the fake glitz of the Capitol, but there’s a beauty in it that she doesn’t know how to explain. 

Finn pulls his helmet off and grins at the look on her face. “Never seen anything like it, huh?”

She turns to face him, sees the beads of sweat rolling from his temples. Her head shakes. “I know it’s not real but--”

“That doesn’t make it any less of a view.” The voice is from someone new. It’s low and playful, and the smile that goes with it reminds her a little of Han’s. The cocky grin, the wind tossed hair, the hand on his hip. “It’s all bullshit, but hey, the Capitol knows how to make something look damn pretty.”

“You’re Poe Dameron,” Rey blurts out. Poe Dameron, winner of the 59th Hunger Games. One of the first winners in the new regime 16 years ago. She spins on Finn, jabbing her finger in the direction of the victor. The tip of her finger brushes part of him, and she doesn’t really want to look at where or think about it, because this is a lot to take in. “This is the friend you mentioned?”

“What’s going on, Finn?” Poe asks with a soft laugh. “I thought when you asked me to meet you--”

“Whoa, whoa.” Finn raises both of his hands up, one still awkwardly holding his helmet. “Okay, _yes_ , this is Poe Dameron. My friend.”

“We’re a little more than friends,” Poe scoffs.

Rey finally forces herself to look at the other man, both eyebrows skyrocketing up her forehead. “What? Oh. OH.”

“Okay, hold on, I know you’re both confused,” Finn continues. He shoots a look at Poe, who merely smirks in return. “I just thought that, I don’t know, Rey could learn a little from you. And you guys could talk.”

Rey feels as confused as Poe looks. He’s a victor for another district. He should be mentoring his own kid.

“Finn, what.” Poe slings an arm around the Peacekeeper’s shoulder, pulling him in close. “She’s the competition, you know. I can’t--”

“You’re Kylo Ren’s mentor,” Rey says. “I’m sure you probably told his moth- Leia Organa that you’d watch out for him, right?”

The look on Poe’s face says it all. She doesn’t know what Finn is thinking, doesn’t know why he brought her up here to talk to a man who can’t help her. Especially when she didn’t even ask for help. When she doesn’t know what kind of help she could use.

“Finn’s heart is in a good place.” Poe lets go of his boyfriend before reaching out for Rey’s hand. “You’re already up here. Come on and stay with us. Maybe we can talk about an alliance.”

**ii.**

The room is separated into different stations. Each station is designed to challenge them in different ways. Weapons, skills, all the things they’re going to need to kill each other. She wonders what it was like to live in a time where this wasn’t a thing.

She wonders if she can quit. 

“Should we stick together?” Owen looks up at her.

“Yes,” Rey tells him. “Allies are important in these things, right? And what better allies than the two of us.”

He smiles in relief at her, and she musters up one for him in return. She’s not wrong, but she doesn’t know how to be with other people. But she knows that she can protect herself, and she can protect Owen for now. Her hand rests on his head, ruffling his hair a bit. 

Her thoughts, though, are buzzing with the late night conversation she had with Finn and Poe. Alliances are important. But she’s not sure she wants to cozy on up to Kylo Ren. 

It’s as though he can hear her thoughts because he looks up at her from his position on the floor, a sword in his lap. She moves past him at a quicker pace, hands on Owen’s shoulders as she guides him past the weapons station and straight into something less menacing. Less Kylo Ren, too. 

But she can still feel him watching her even as Owen goes through with the knot work she’s been showing him for the last twenty minutes. Glancing over her shoulder is the world’s worst decision. Their eyes meet. He glares at her. She makes a face and whips back around to focus on Owen.

“Rey?”

“What?”

“Were you staring at Kylo Ren?”

“No.”

Her fingers work over the knots in her own rope, tightening them up so she can show Owen what he’s doing wrong. No time to think about past winners and future winners and whether or not she’s going to die in a few days or not. Definitely no time to think about how to fight back against President Snoke or the way Finn whispered the words “the Resistance” at her. Because she’s pretty sure that’s happened before, and…

“He’s looking at you.”

When she looks up again, the other boy is closer. Like he’s pretending to be nonchalant about what he’s doing. The weapon is gone from his hands, at least. He’s leaning back against a pillar, not even pretending to listen to the red haired guy from District 4 talking to him. His attention is fully on Rey, and she can’t even begin to imagine why.

No. She can.

Because Han and Maz played dress up and used her as a stand in doll for his uncle.

“We’re not going to pay attention to him, Owen.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t stop him from paying attention to us.” With a huff, the kid throws the rope down. “I can’t do this. Maybe we can move on.”

Her lips purse. “What are you good at?”

“Not knots.”

Rey takes a deep breath. Before she can speak, there’s a low grumble behind her. Owen’s face goes pale, sheet white, like he’s seen a ghost.

“What are you good at?”

“Not sneaking up on people,” Rey mutters. She turns around and finds Kylo Ren entirely too close to her. She takes a step back, gives herself some breathing room. When she looks back to find Owen, he’s already scrambled away to a different station. 

With a sigh, she crosses her arms over her chest. 

Kylo mirrors her.

The chatter in the room dims out, and she doesn’t know if it’s because she’s focusing too hard on this other tribute or because everyone else has grown quiet. If she looks at them, will it give validity to the situation? 

Up close, she can see a lot of his mother in him. She’s been staring at pictures and tapings of Leia Organa for years. But there’s something else familiar in his face and the way he holds himself. There’s a cockiness there that she doesn’t think he’s actually ever grown into. It’s not like Poe’s easy charm or Han’s blunt confidence. It’s awkward, like he’s trying to hard. He looms over her and she wonders if he’s trying to intimidate her.

It’s working, of course. She doesn’t want it to be working, but there’s a storm in his eyes when he looks at her, and she has this sudden fear like he could rip her apart. Like if they were already in the arena, he might actually be doing so.

Rey grits her teeth for a moment, steeling herself. 

She’s not going to be scared of him. That’s a weakness she can’t afford the others to see from her. 

“Sneaking is a good skill to have out there,” Kylo tells her. This is the part where people usually smile. He doesn’t smile. 

She’s not even sure he knows how to smile, like there’s no way the corners of his mouth know how to turn up without someone physically doing so. She can’t even tell if it’s more unnerving that he’s frowning or because he refuses to smile, because the frown says a lot more to her. It says that he doesn’t understand why she doesn’t understand.

“From what I’ve noticed, a lot of good skills are useful for this kind of thing. I don’t know how to sneak like some people.” At this, she lets her gaze flick over him. “But I know how to do plenty of other things.”

She can cook, fight, survive. She can fly, something people aren’t supposed to know anything about. She scavenges. And she’s not really sure how most of these skills are going to help in an arena she knows nothing about, but she doesn’t think she’s going to be so easy to get rid of. 

“Maybe I could teach you. How to sneak,” he offers her.

“Did Poe put you up to this?” she whispers. 

It’s his turn for his face to screw up, brows furrowed as he tries to figure out what she’s saying. “What does _he_ have to do with anything? You think I can’t get through this without him?”

Her lips part, but Rey finds that she has no idea what to say. There’s something wrong with this guy.

**iii.**

“You should stay away from him,” is all Han tells her.

But there’s so much more he wants to say, and she has no idea how to get it out of him.

**iv.**

Rey stays away from him. And she stays away from Finn, too, despite the notes and hints he keeps dropping at her. 

She trains alone with Owen watching her, but she refuses to pick up the staff that stares at her invitingly.

**v.**

Kylo Ren stares at her with the same kind of intensity. Like he’s trying to invite her in, too.


	4. Chapter 4

**i.**

Poe speaks. Kylo doesn’t listen. It’s been their thing for years, actually. Their mothers were friends, they fought together. 

Poe tends to think that this means they are family. 

Kylo Ren stares at a point right over Poe’s shoulder, having long ago learned the important art of looking like he’s paying attention without actually doing so. Right now, he doesn’t need some pretty boy telling him how to win something he was born to win. It’s a family birthright. Just because Poe lucked out in his own Games doesn’t mean that he was meant to win. 

“You’re not even listening, are you?”

“No,” Kylo Ren says.

Poe frowns, his brows drawn together. Because if he’s answering a question now, then he’s listening. Isn’t he? But as much as Kylo doesn’t care for the older boy, he can’t say the guy is entirely too stupid. He sighs.

Once, they were close, he supposes. He did see Poe Dameron as something like a brother, a close friend. But then Poe went to the Games, and he changed. 

But then President Snoke wanted to invite his mother to dinner parties in the Capitol.

“You’re not really gaining any fans with the brooding exterior,” Poe points out. “We need to go over your presentation for the interviews.”

It takes all of his willpower to not roll his eyes, but there’s a twitch in his fingers. He doesn’t _care_ about fans. He’s not going to lose. Not to any of these kids, and especially not to any girls they’re trying to parade around like she could be the second coming of his uncle. He grinds his teeth together and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep the rage trapped under his skin this time. 

Who does _Han Solo_ even think he is? It feels like a personal insult. A slap to his face. Of course the man would back this girl and use his family against him. 

It’s just to rattle him, Kylo Ren tries to tell himself. It’s to throw him off. 

Poe claps his hands in front of the boy’s face. “I get that you don’t care about making friends--”

“It isn’t a friend making contest,” Kylo Ren snaps in return. “I have to kill all of them.”

His voice is as dead as he can possibly make it. He has to seem bloodthirsty. Has to act like he can do it. The worst part is, he knows he can. He can kill them, and it won’t make much of a difference. A means to an end.

But it’s that damn girl that’s bothering him.

“Allies, then. Partners. That _is_ important. It’s also important to want to impress people. There’s only so much--”

_“No.”_

Poe stops short, leaning forward at the same moment as Kylo’s outburst. There is frustration in his face, in the lines that are forming there slowly over the years. “No?”

“I don’t want you to help me.”

He tries to sound as nasty as he could be without it being contrived. He can do this on his own, but there is a smaller part of him that is talking right now. The part that doesn’t want Poe doing more than he needs to to keep him alive. Kylo Ren is a lot of things, and he is well aware of the sins that will haunt him after this; thinking about the things Poe Dameron will do is not something he wants to add to that.

“You’re being difficult.”

The boy shrugs before getting to his feet. “Deal with it.”

**ii.**

“Is it necessary to be, you know?” Rey thinks about sweeping a hand over what she’s referring to, but that would mean moving one of her hands from censorship. Instead, she nods her chin down to point out her body. 

Maz looks up at her, squinting through her glasses. “Naked?”

“That.”

The older woman smiles and pats Rey’s hip gently. “I just want to take last minute measurements for your interview dress.”

“Is it going to be an actual dress this time and not some Luke Skywalker robe?” The words come out a little bit more bitter than she means them to be. Honestly, she had expected that to be the case. That they would continue putting her forth as the next Skywalker, and the idea has lost her more than a few hours of sleep.

The smile her designer gives her is reassuring. It’s one of the few real expressions she’s seen since she’s been in the Capitol. “What do you think I am trying to do here, Rey?”

“I’m not sure what anyone is trying to do here,” she admits. “You’re selling me as an idea? That’s the point. To get people to back me.”

Maz hands her a robe that she quickly puts back on. “I am backing a winner.”

Rey gives a tight smile. She glances around before leaning down, her voice barely a whisper. It was wind in the leaves, a faint rustle. “Are we fighting something more?”

The woman takes her hand and pats the back of it gently. “Now, why would we ever do that? Besides, look at these nails. There’s no time. Come.”

Her nails look healthier than most of the kids back in the Seam by the time Maz’s assistants are done with her. Her stomach squirms at the sight. Not because she feels guilty. She does, that’s a given. How could she not?

But because she likes the way they look. And she likes the way the dress floats around her, nothing skin tight that makes her feel self-conscious, the earthy tones almost the same as her parade outfit. It’s a theme, she realizes. She’s down to earth, a nobody with the chance to be _somebody_. 

She doesn’t like that she likes it.

**iii.**

Poe gives him a once over and nods, as if he’s had anything to do with the way that Kylo Ren looks at the moment. He wears the kind of self satisfied smile that irks the boy, and his mentor knows it. He pats Kylo on the shoulder and nods again.

“Well, if you’re going to be dark and brooding, I suppose looking the part can’t hurt.”

He says nothing. Maybe if he pretends that Poe doesn’t exist for long enough, he’ll go away.

No such luck so far, though.

“You wanna give me any kind of insight into what you’re thinking here?”

He has to kill them. He has to survive. He has to win. 

Poe should understand that more than anyone. Poe’s done it. So how can he stare up at Kylo with such an air of nonchalance?

“You enjoy it, don’t you? Kids killing each other.”

It’s a below the belt kind of move, but Kylo can’t say there isn’t some satisfaction to be gained from the look that crosses his mentor’s face. Anger, hurt, and kind of betrayal. His cheeks go red and his jaw grows tight, and it’s all he can do to keep from laughing right then and there. They all have their parts to play, after all.

“You think this will be easy for you.”

“I know it will be.”

And so Poe does something unexpected. He _pities_ Kylo. It’s the flash of compassion in his dark eyes and the way his lips purse as if there are a million things to say and no way of wording it.

His mother wears that look a lot. 

“That girl,” he says before Poe can just walk away from him. It catches the man’s attention, and although his face is carefully arranged in a way that makes him look clueless, it’s the arch of a furry eyebrow that assures Kylo that Poe knows who he means. “She mentioned you.”

That cocky twist comes roaring back to life. “A lot of girls mention me, Ben. Be more specific.”

His nostrils flare and his knuckles pop loudly when he clenches his fist. The _name_. It’s projected low, of course. Nobody’s going to hear it but the two of them. But others hear the way he cracks. Hux glances over at him with vague curiosity, his little red haired competitor taking in every small moment that he breaks.

That’s the one he’s going to have to kill first.

But as of right now, his attention needs to be focused on Poe Dameron, not Hux.

“The scavenger.”

“Ah, do you have a little crush?”

He grits his teeth. She mentioned Poe’s name, like she knew him. Like Poe was involved with her somehow. “What’s your game?”

“The same one everyone’s playing,” Poe tells him with a wink. “Looks like you’re about to be up. Go get ‘em, tiger.”

**iv.**

Both Han and Rey watch Kylo Ren from around a corner as his name is called, as Cee Thripio stands. He’s dressed in so much gold, that he sparkles all the way backstage. How Kylo Ren doesn’t squint when he steps forward is beyond her. She feels like she’ll go blind staring at the gold hair for too long, honestly. 

Thripio holds out his hand, but Kylo ignores it and flops heavily into the chair designated for the tributes. The host titters awkwardly, ringing his free hands together before he finally pulls himself together long enough to sit in his own chair. 

Rude tributes are not new, and Thripio has been doing this job for a long time. He’s seen a lot of dead kids come through and so few live ones.

Despite herself, her fears and doubts about that monster on stage, Rey finds herself smiling.

Next to her, Han Solo snorts. “That kid has always been more like his mother than anyone else.”

“What a weird thing to say,” she finds herself saying out loud.

It shuts her mentor down completely. He jabs a finger into her spine. “Pay attention the interviews for anything the others can reveal to us.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm the slowest writer, i'm sorry

**i.**

The interviews are only three minutes long. That’s what Han tells her and Owen earlier in the day. So Rey doesn’t know what she’s going to gain from listening to 22 other interviews, 23 including Owen. She doesn’t want to include Owen. She doesn’t want to be responsible for what happens to him. 

Maybe it’s not necessarily what she’s going to _gain_ , she thinks as Thripio begins to talk to Kylo. It’s how she’s going to remember all of their interviews. It’s how she is going to do hers. 

“Now, a legacy such as yourself must feel good about your chances? Your mother was quite intelligent. I remember interviewing her twenty years ago, and just what a _woman_.”

Rey watches Kylo’s face. It’s like stone. 

“Are we here to talk about me or Leia Organa?” Kylo asks in return. A titter runs through the audience, a few ladies laughing behind their hands. Rey watches some fan themselves, as if this burst of anger is attractive.

Her nose wrinkles. 

“You, of course. But I think,” Thripio says, shifting toward the crowd and smiling awkwardly, “all of Panem wants to know about what gifts you’ll be bringing to the table.”

“I am like my grandfather before me. Nobody else here stands a chance.”

The _arrogance_. 

And like his grandfather? Of course he would want to remind everyone of Anakin Skywalker, one of the more brutal victors of the past, one of the more brutal members that stood against the rebellion. 

Rey purses her lips. 

Thripio’s hands flutter in his lap. He’s so full of anxiety that Rey’s surprised he doesn’t burst into spontaneous flames. She doesn’t even think that would faze Kylo. He’s something else, a deadened monster. Maybe he is a lot more like Anakin than Leia. 

Owen glances up at Han. “Still think he sounds like his mother?”

Han looks grumpy at the question, but not in a way that Rey thinks is anger. “Yeah. She always was a lot of talk. A lot of walk, too. He’s dangerous.”

There are a few more questions, just enough to put through the three minutes. When it’s over, Kylo Ren stomps off the stage, hitting Rey with his shoulder before passing her by. She’s ready to throw him a glare, maybe stick her tongue out a little, but then she hears him under his breath.

“Didn’t even ask me why I’m not going by my real name, now that’s something juicy for the crowd.”

Her brow furrow as she cranes her neck to watch him.

Han flicks her in the shoulder. “Pretty faces aren’t worth the distraction.”

But he’s watching, too. 

She really hopes it’s not his pretty face that Han finds distracting in Kylo Ren. She really hopes she doesn’t keep thinking of his face as pretty. 

It feels like it’s all too quickly her turn to go in front of the audience, the cameras, and the other tributes for her own interview. Han gives her a solemn thumbs up, Owen a wan smile. She smiles, too. For all of them. She waves. Because she’s already decided that she can’t let this place change what’s inside of her. 

That’s something that still hasn’t caught up to her, why she can’t get behind the concept of hurting any of them. Her gaze sweeps out over her fellow tributes, and even as terrifying as some of them are, they’re still all just kids. There’s something wrong with their country, and it doesn’t seem capable of even fixing itself.

If she dies, she hopes someone remembers her smile. 

There’s something inhuman about the way Thripio’s skin feels when he clasps her hands. It’s a strong grip, which is already surprising. He seems so frail and weak, but her hands are held tight. But it’s his skin that seems stranges, waxy and cold and wet. She keeps smiling during the exchange though and hopes her mouth doesn’t break from holding it that way for too long.

Rey’s afraid if she does, she might sigh in relief. And that’s not going to win her any points. 

“Hello, Rey,” he greets warmly. “How are you liking the Capitol?”

“It’s so bright and clean,” is the first thing that pops into her head. “I don’t think I’ve seen even a little bit of dirt once.”

The audience laughs. He laughs. 

She just wants to know why everything is so sanitized down, as if people weren’t aware of how dirty the world really was. 

“Yes, I suppose coming out of District Twelve, things _would_ look a little different. A little known fact, I came from District Three,” Thripio begins. His hands flutter. It’s a well known fact that he brings up a good portion of the time. “When I came to the Capitol, I didn’t know what to think either! Oh goodness, so many things to take in.”

Her brow draws in, her smile waning just a little. “It is a lot, yeah.”

His experience is also different than her own. He didn’t have to kill other kids.

“Oh dear. I am most curious about your costume choice during the parade, as I am sure all of us are.”

“Me too.” It’s out of her mouth before she can take it back, and Rey forces out a breath that sounds almost like a laugh. “I guess we’re always so remembered for what we mine that people forget the wasteland outside of District Twelve, the sands that surround us. It’s typical gear for survival.”

Don’t mention Luke Skywalker, she keeps chanting herself. Don’t mention Luke Skywalker. 

Dont--

“It’s just--”

Mention--

“It looks so much--”

Luke--

“Like a dishonored son we all once knew and loved.” Thripio dips his head and sighs, placing a hand over his face.

Her smile is frozen on her face.

The man winks at her.

**ii.**

“That was a disaster.” Han pours himself a Corellian brandy, drinks it, pours himself another one, and then hands it to her.

It smells like poison. 

“I didn’t ask for this.” Rey doesn’t mean to do it, but her lip juts out in something that feels like a pout. She doesn’t even remember having pouted before. Actually, there has never been anyone for her to pout to. 

“No, it’s great.” He’s on his third drink already, using his free hand to point at her. 

“I’m confused.”

“Are you going to drink that?”

She hands the glass out to him, biting back the sigh on her lips. “Are you just going to drink yourself into a stupor?”

“I’m trying to clear my head so that I can explain something to you.”

“That’s not helping, Han.”

He downs the drink, taking a deep breath. The glass clinks against wood when he puts it down, and then his hands are on her shoulders. They’re big, practically engulfing. He leans down a bit to level with her, and it makes her nervous. 

“Does this have to do with Poe Dameron?” is what she asks him instead before he can talk his way out of this one. Pretend to be drunk. Lie to her. She doesn’t know Han Solo that well, and she likes him, but she’s not stupid.

“What?” Han ges pale, like he’s just heard the name of a ghost. But they would know each other. They’re victors. They would know each other.

“He wants me to make an alliance with Kylo Ren.”

“Are you going to?”

“Do you think I should?”

There are so many things that flicker in his dark gaze, so many emotions that she can’t put a finger on. It’s too much for her, and she thinks it’s too much for him. Her hand comes up, resting on top of his in an attempt to comfort him. 

She leans forward, pitching her voice to just under a whisper. “Are we raising another rebellion? Is Kylo Ren the key?”

Leia Organa was one of the most instrumental figures in the previous war, before Snoke took control. Before Snoke got his chains on the woman and locked her away. That was when they had lost Luke Skywalker and when Han had made a deal to keep himself out of prison. 

Kylo Ren had volunteered, and she thought maybe it was because that was the Career kids did. They had a lot to prove, a lot to win, but maybe it was something more for that monster of a boy.

Maybe he was here for his mother.

Han’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. He snorts and backs off, rubbing his mouth with his hand. “Yeah, kid, that’s it. Glad you could figure it out without me having to say the words.”

Rey relaxes a bit. They want her to be _part of this_. That’s amazing in and of itself. She’s nobody, nothing, but they chose her to do what? Help Kylo Ren win?

But that would mean…

“I have to die to free Leia.”

Her mentor shakes his head, pressing his lips together. There’s so much pain in his face, she feels her knees go weak.

“No, Rey. You need to kill my son to save us.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the short hiatus, guys! the last few months i was focusing on my original writing (i'm trying to submit a short story in for publication) and a star wars big bang that ended up disappearing (which is where seven jedi came from)

**i.**

_You need to kill my son._

He says it so nonchalantly, that Rey thinks she mishears him. It’s completely different than the theory she’s been struck with. She thought they were grooming her as red herring, force Snoke to look in her direction for the time that she’s alive in the Games.

But this?

This strikes her in such a way that she wishes that were the truth. 

Rey doesn’t even say anything to Han. Kylo Ren is his son. His son that he wants killed _by her hands_. 

It’s as if her chest has been hollowed out, and her stomach quickly wants to follow suit. All of this fancy food has already been sitting wrong with her the past couple of days as it is, but now to hear something like that tossed at her. 

What she would give for family. For a father and a mother. She doesn’t even remember them, her own parents. Would they care so little as to tell someone else they had to kill her?

She pushes away from the table without a word. 

“Kid--”

“He’s your son.”

This can’t be what Poe wants from her. He can’t know about Han’s plan.

“Kid, will you sit so I can explain?”

Rey shakes her head, unable to even look at her mentor. And here she’s been letting herself want to get close to him, wanting to like him. It’s really hard not to, actually. Maybe that’s why this hurts as much as it does.

There are no tears that she can muster, because she can’t be weak, not now. That doesn’t stop the way her chest feels like it’s caving in on her or the slump of her shoulders.

She was looking at him the way some jaded teenager would look at their father, and that’s as dangerous as having hope apparently. 

“He’s your son, Han. What-- Does--” The words are tumbling against her teeth as she clicks them shut. Nothing in his expression has changed, but she sees the subtle shifts in his posture. She’s talking too much, and they’re listening too closely. 

“Look, Rey. These Games are brutal, you know that. I know that. If you don’t kill him, he’ll kill you.”

Han says this loudly. She wonders if that’s really going to beat the suspicion of it all. Probably not. They’re setting her up. Snoke is already looking at her. Kylo Ren is already looking at her.

Does Leia know what Han is going to do?

Is she behind this?

Would Luke condone it?

It’s as if all of her heroes are as twisted and horrible as the rest of the tributes, the winners, the Capitol. 

Rey turns heel and walks out of the room. She isn’t going to dignify _anything_ that Han says to her right now. 

**ii.**

Rey doesn’t sleep. How can she?

She took three baths to get the smear of the Capitol off of her, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. She smells like their soap, too clean, too pretty. She misses the soot of 12, the stench of oil in her nose, the sand in her teeth. She misses her grimy clothes, but instead she’s draped in finery, even for sleep. Her pants are dark blue and so soft against her skin. It makes her feel disgusting. Maybe that’s what the Capitol wants, for all of them to look so out of place in clothes never meant for them. 

She tugs a jacket on and makes her way to the roof as she has been doing for the last few nights now. Deep down, she knows if she doesn’t get any decent sleep in soon, she’s guaranteed to fail the second the shot fires off. No killing Kylo Ren. No protecting Owen. No rebellion, no saving the Princess of the Games, no figuring out her place in this. 

She expects Finn again, maybe Poe.

She doesn’t expect her enemy, her prey, her potential ally.

He sits at the edge of the roof, where the invisible barrier meets sky, his back to her. There’s something oddly human about the way he’s hunched forward, dark hair pulled up in a sloppy bun. 

If she leaves now, he’ll never know she was here. She can sleep. She can ignore what Han told her, and what Poe has said to her, and the weird things Kylo Ren himself has spoken. 

Rey doesn’t leave.

She clears her throat, so there’s no mistaking she’s here. If she sneaks up on, she’s got a feeling he’ll react on instinct. Before she can even take another step forward, he’s on his feet, hands balled into fists. He’s hunched, ready for the attack.

There’s this animal look in his eyes that _terrifies_ her. 

Does that look cross her own face? Can he see it in her brown eyes or hear it in the way her breath hitches?

Adrenaline follows fear, flight sliding into fight as her arms throw up defensively.

They stand like that for who knows how long. Neither of them are going to relax first, because it would admit defeat. 

“What are you doing up here?” he asks her.

“I could ask you the same.” She sounds harsher than she means to, but he doesn’t even bat an eyelash.

Looking at him now, though, she can see it more clearly. The curve of his mouth, his chin, part of the way he holds himself. It’s all Han, perfectly spliced into the videos she’s seen of Leia Organa. A perfect creation, right before her eyes. A perfect monster.

“I asked first. It would be rude to not answer.”

“I don’t answer to you.”

Even the smirk is Han’s, the telltale way his dark eyes light up. It was familiar to her before, but now she can place it.

Does anyone else know?

Has anyone else connected the dots?

She couldn’t even before having it handed to her on a platter, but she supposes she hasn’t made it a habit of studying Kylo Ren. Well, she’s tried not to, in any case.

He relaxes first. She doesn’t. He can’t attack her right now, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to let her guard down.

“You came up here for the same reason I did.”

“Maybe.”

Rey doesn’t want to admit that they’re similar, but she hasn’t seen anyone else really sneak up here before. 

Kylo Ren rolls his eyes and takes his place back down near the edge of the roof. “Either join me, or go. But I’m not going to sit here and share a roof with someone who looks as ridiculous as you do right now.”

Her brow furrows in irritation. “I don’t look _ridiculous_.”

“Yes you do.”

It takes her another moment, and Rey wouldn’t quite say that she relaxes but she falls out of her defensive stance. She takes hesitant steps closer to him, but takes a seat as far from him as she can. He’ll have to lunge forward to grab her.

“You don’t like me,” Kylo Ren says.

“Nobody likes you,” Rey points out.

He snorts. It’s almost a laugh. “They like you.”

“They like Luke Skywalker.”

There’s a grimace that crosses his face, and he almost looks like he might spit fire at the mention of his uncle. Somehow, he manages to swallow it. A shudder runs through him anyway, and Rey’s fascinated by it. Is he restraining himself for her sake?

“Yes,” he begins cautiously. “People always like the romance and tragedy of victors, but especially those of the rebellion?” His jaw clenches. “I’ve been coming to the Capitol for a long time, to see my mother.”

Rey blinks, blindsided by how easily he says that to her. “President Snoke keeps her close.”

“She’s a threat. Wouldn’t you want to keep your enemies close, Rey?”

He almost purrs her name, like he’s trying to be seductive. He fails at it, trips over his words, over the way he says her name like he’s afraid of it. He tried to be a Poe Dameron and ended up someone else entirely. His tactics are a distraction, though, a momentary one.

Is he telling her this because they’re enemies, and he’s trying to keep her close?

“He’s using her against you?” is what she asks instead, her voice soft. 

“At first, maybe.”

“But not now?”

There’s conflict that scrawls against his face before his expression contorts into his trademark anger. “She fought against the government. She gets what she deserves.”

Rey’s mouth goes dry. _You need to kill my son to save our country._

Snoke was turning Kylo Ren into another Anakin Skywalker, perpetuating the myth of the obedient tribute. She doesn’t know whether she should be disgusted or feel pity.

“She fought to make Panem safer for you.” Her words are barely a whisper. Would her parents have done that? Did they do that?

“A lot of good that did.”

Rey has had enough of this family, she realizes. They’re going to rip her apart and make her into the same kind of monster they all are. She gets back to her feet. “You’re horrible. I can’t believe - Just leave me alone, okay?”

He’s like lightning, lashing out and grabbing her by the wrist before she can storm away. Staring up at him makes her dizzy, but that doesn’t stop her from struggling.

“Let me go.”

“Just ask me one thing.”

“What?”

His smile this time is all him, not Poe, not Han. It’s awkward and fumbling and forced, but it smooths his face out and makes him human. Her heart does a leap that has nothing to do with fear or anger. _Just a pretty face_ , she reminds herself. There’s no point in getting caught up over a pretty face. 

“Two questions, then.”

Did he just make a joke?

“Fine,” she spits out. “Tell me what you want me to ask.”

“My name. Ask me about my name.”

He’s playing a stupid, ridiculous game. And she’s being toyed with. She doesn’t like it. But his grip is so tight on her wrist, that it’s definitely going to bruise. 

“Why is your name such a big deal?”

He tugs her in closer to him, despite the way she digs in her heels. “Snoke wanted me to change it, because Ben Organa is a sweet kid. Kylo Ren is a killer. And they’re all eating it up.”

“Are you a killer, Ben Organa?”

“Don’t I have to be?”

There’s something in the way his voice breaks that almost breaks her, too. Is there a human behind that mask, or is this a ploy to gain her trust?

“No,” Rey tells him. “We don’t have to be killers.”

**iii.**

Rey said no with such conviction that Kylo Ren almost believes her. He wants to believe her. _We don’t have to be killers_. 

It’s the most idiotic thing he’s heard, though. Of course they have to be killers. It’s naive of her to believe otherwise. Is she simply going to roll over and die in the Games? He doubts it. She’s a survivor. It’s the way she holds herself, in the way she talks, her tenacity. Someone like her, an orphan so young with nobody to take care of her but herself the whole time? Someone like her doesn’t give up.

She’s going to kill the same as he is.

He just wishes she would let him show her that it doesn’t have to destroy her. It doesn’t have to mean that she’s going to be horrendous. 

It doesn’t mean that it has to kill that smile of hers, so bright and warm. He’s never seen anything quite like it.

Maybe it’s better that it _does_ die. That she does. She’s becoming a distraction for him, for his goal. 

When he gets back to his room, he doesn’t sleep. He _destroys_ it. He rips his linens to shreds, slams chairs and tables and lamps into the walls.

Poe watches him from a doorway, letting him get his aggression out first before coming to soothe him.

“Ben.”

Kylo Ren lets the older man wrap his arms around him and pull him in for a tight hug, until his shaking stops and he can breathe normally again. They’re enemies. They’re friends. He _hates_ Poe Dameron.

He wishes Poe could save him.

He wishes Rey could.

He wishes that it was his father holding him instead of his mentor, and he wonders if Han has hugged Rey to soothe the rage that rumbles inside of her. Maybe she hasn’t even noticed it yet.

Maybe _he_ can soothe it from her.

“I’m not in control,” Kylo Ren seethes.

“I know,” is all Poe can say, awkwardly holding the younger boy tighter. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I realize that I messed up a little before and had the interviews _before_ the scoring/private training, and I'm super sorry about that! 
> 
> next chapter, the Games begin though B)

**i.**

“You look terrible,” Owen tells her. If it has been Han, she thinks she would have freaked out. She can't freak out at Owen; she has to protect him.

“Thanks.” It doesn't mean she has to be cheery about it, though. Every part of her body feels like it's melting.

Han stares at her but doesn't make a comment. He looks unhappy, and that does make her feel a little better before it makes her feel bad. After her run in and talk with his son, she can see how he'd feel like he'd have to be so extreme.

She doesn't agree. She'll never agree. She isn't even really sure she understands.

But there is definitely something wrong with Kylo Ren.

“Give it your all today,” Han says to the both of them after breakfast. She knows he’s really only talking to her, but Owen manages a wan smile as he tucks in next to Rey.

They head to the training rooms for the final time. Tomorrow they die. Tomorrow they live. Today, they get judged. 

_Give it your all_. 

Get a high score.

Get sponsors. 

Kill Kylo Ren.

Save Leia Organa.

To what end? What purpose does she serve, and how will killing Ren save Leia and stop President Snoke?

“What happened to your wrist?” Owen asks.

Rey looks down at the bruise. It aches, but only a little. She wonders if that’s going to hinder her in the private sessions. There are dark prints encircling like a twisted kind of bracelet. His mark, on her skin, just like she assumed it would be. Her other hand covers her wrist, rubbing it. 

“I ran into a monster.”

Owen raises an eyebrow at her. “A monster?”

“A very cranky one,” Rey confides with a smile. 

“I think I’d rather face a cranky monster than the arena.” There’s such emptiness in his voice that her breath catches. 

They’re going to die. He knows it. 

“There are going to be cranky monsters in there, too.” Kylo Ren is going to be there, and he thinks the only way out of this is to kill. 

“One makes me feel like I have a better chance.” Owen frowns, turning his gaze from her to the room of their competitors. “Against a bunch? There are no odds in my favor.”

“There are no odds in anyone’s favor, Owen.”

The boy holds up one finger. A few of the other tributes look their way. They talk low, of course, keep to themselves, but maybe they can hear anyway. Maybe they already understand what the conversation is.

“There’s odds in at least one person’s favor.”

Her breath hitches. Twenty-four go in. One comes out. It never ends.

Her gaze meets Kylo Ren’s without meaning to. She just wanted to look at the room and wonder about odds, but she’s drawn to him instead. There’s nothing but anger and emptiness there, exactly what she expects out of him. If she has to kill him, that’s the only way that it’s going to make it okay. He’s empty, disillusioned.

But that thought makes her stomach flip. She wants to get rid of breakfast suddenly. 

He’s disillusioned because his mother was taken, his uncle disappeared, a random girl is throwing the Capitol into a tizzy. Han flippantly agreed that their was a rebellion, and for a second, she had believed that. But those were the words of a drunk, disillusioned man, who thought the only way to free someone he loved was to kill his son.

Why?

Is Snoke using Kylo Ren, or does he buy into the order of Panem? Does he reject the ideals of his parents?

Han must believe that he does.

One by one, tributes begin to disappear into another room for their private training. A nervous energy fills the main room as most people abandon training in favor of looking ominous and intimidating. It works for some of them. 

It doesn’t work for all of them. 

Rey would rather curl in on herself, disappear right out of this room, out of the Games, out of the universe if she could manage it.

She can’t, and they call her name. 

It feels like she’s walking to her death. Everything is heavy around her, pressing into her body. So she pushes back, straightens her back and squares her shoulders. If they want Luke Skywalker, if they want Leia Organa, she’ll give it to them. She’ll give the judges everything that she is: a survivor. She’ll find a way out of this, just like the heroes that had come before her. 

**ii.**

She looks like a queen walking. It reminds him of his mother, the way she commanded a room, even when she was the smallest one in it.

“Kylo Ren,” the girl from his district says with saccharine sweetness, pulling him out of his thoughts. He can’t even remember what her name is. Cora, maybe. 

He blinks at her, face as blank as his memory of her.

It doesn’t seem to faze her. Her mouth pulls into a smile. She flutters thick lashes at him. 

“I hope you’ve decided to join us. We’ll be better off together, out in the Arena. With our combined resources, we could give them a show.” She reaches out to touch him, possibly put her hand on his chest. 

He jerks away, though. An uncomfortable feeling winds through his body, the idea of being touched by someone he doesn’t even know making him feel dizzy. She’s _flirting_ with him, and he doesn’t know how to properly respond to that without feeling angry. That she felt she could approach him, that she felt she could sway him with a flutter of lashes.

A mottled shade of red crawls up her neck, embarrassment and rage. Her jaw clenches, like she’s grinding her teeth together. Her eyes flash. “Seriously?”

“I don’t want an alliance.”

That’s mostly true. He doesn’t want to drag anyone else into his plot and into his oath to Snoke. But there’s something about that Rey, enough of a something that even his own mentor has been meeting with her. Of course, that could have been Poe giving away his secrets, his weaknesses, making sure she has a way of destroying him. 

Whatever his face must look like in this instant, it makes Cora stumble back to get away from him. Her shame gives way to a little spark of fear. 

He smiles. That’s the reaction he wants from his competitors. He wants them to fear him. 

He leans in then, pitching his voice low. “I’m just going to kill you anyway.”

Cora pulls herself back together, and there’s still fear there, but also determination. “We’ll see. There’s only one of you, Ben Organa.”

He watches her leave the room in a storm of fury.

She’s going to be the first to go.

**iii.**

Maz holds Rey’s hand as they all settle together in their living suite for District 12. Han sits with his arms across his chest, looking as carefully bored as he can manage. It almost works for him. Owen sits next to his stylist, a small woman who looks as equally queasy as her tribute. She appreciates the comfort from her stylist in this moment, as they wait for the scores to be announced.

She’s been alone for too long, and she is getting too used to physical contact now. That thought plays on a loop in the back of her mind constantly. 

“How do we think we did today, kids?” Han asks them. The joy has been sucked out of his voice. Had there ever actually been joy there?

Probably not for a very long time. 

“Bad,” Owen says.

“Okay,” Rey contributes. 

“Fantastic.”

Maz pats the back of her hand gently. “All will be fine.”

But Rey bites her tongue because one or both of them in this room will die in the following days, and she doesn’t define that as being “fine” at all. What a twisted world. 

The announcements begin to report on the television about the scores. It’s predictable that the Careers get 8-10s. That’s no surprise. It is one, though, when Kylo Ren achieves a 12. Rey watches Han from the corner of her eye as he leans forward. He rubs a hand over his mouth, and to other people it’s probably what they assume is giving up hope for his own tributes. To Rey, she can see the forming of a smile as it slides behind his hand to hide.

That’s pride.

She waits anxiously until District 12 gets announced. Owen’s stylist has her arm around the boy already. He gets a 5. That’s not bad, in her opinion. Not great, but not bad. He won’t be a threat. She can do what she has to to watch him, in that case. They can be invisible.

“Rey,” Maz breathes softly. 

“What?”

“Good job, kid.”

Rey stares back at her face. She feels every part of her go numb. That can’t be real. There’s no way she got that score.

“An eleven?” She chokes out a laugh, devoid of any humor. “They gave me an eleven?”

“They gave you a target,” Han tells her.

“But also a way to get sponsors,” Maz points out.

**iv.**

Rey goes up to the roof that night, her final night here, in the hopes that her space hasn’t been invaded by a little prick that goes by a silly name. She’s in luck. Instead, it’s Finn who is waiting up there for her. Her friend. She doesn’t hesitate to think that about them, even though they’ve only known each other a few days, even though all of their interactions have been on this roof.

And she does something she never thought she would ever do.

She launches herself at him, holding tightly to him. He swallows loudly, as if he has no idea what to do with this, but he doesn’t hesitate for long before folding his arms around her and squeezing tightly.

It’s been so long since she has been hugged that she doesn’t even remember what it feels like. She holds onto the Peacekeeper like he’s her final lifeline. 

“Congratulations,” Finn says. “That’s an impressive score. I don’t know if I want to know what you showed them.”

“Very impressive stick moves,” Rey says in a more choked up voice. “Would it be wrong of me to admit that I’m scared?”

“I think I’d be a little more worried if you said you weren’t. Then you’d be like Kylo Ren. Don’t be like that, the kid is messed up. You’re not messed up. I mean, maybe a little, because you have to win, but maybe not on his level.”

“I don’t know that I can.” She pulls away from him, but he keeps his hands on her shoulders. “I can’t--”

“You have to, Rey. I didn’t go through all this trouble to seek you out only to lose you now.”

She gives him a small laugh. She’s never had a friend before, either, and here he is, telling her all the things she needs to hear to keep her going. 

“There’s no way out of this. And I know that Poe cares about his tribute.”

Finn frowns. “There’s something wrong about Kylo Ren, though. I keep trying to tell Poe that, but it always starts off an argument. Whatever that kid used to be, Snoke has fucked him up. Then again, I guess if my mom was taken hostage, I’d be a little, you know. Not all there.”

“What if it’s more than that?”

Finn hugs her again. “Think about yourself and survival and try to keep an eye on Kylo Ren, whatever you do out there.”

There was a reason that Finn had introduced her to Poe, though, an alliance that Finn thought might have worked out. But maybe it was deeper than that. She was supposed to find something out from the kid, something he wasn’t telling anyone else.

She was getting really tired of these confusing, secretive missions. She looked up at Finn and searched his face, hoping to find the answers there. There were a few, and she nodded slowly. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Rey admitted. “But I’ll try.”

Try to live, try to help out, try to free her country. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not gone! 8Db also the games have begun!

**i.**

Rey stares at the little podium that she’s supposed to stand on until the game-starting shot is fired off. Not a second too soon, and definitely not a second too long. She’s not even really sure what the arena is going to be. She had hoped, for some stupid reason, that maybe Han had known and would give her and Owen a hint before they left the room that morning.

He didn’t. 

Maz’s small hand is at her hip, warm and comforting. “This part has never been easy for me.”

“For you?”

Rey can feel a hard smile curl over her mouth, and if she’s not careful, she’ll pull off a sneer even Kylo Ren could be impressed with. 

“Mm.” That comforting hand pats her gently on the hip now, once, twice. “Excellent point. I won’t make it worse finishing my reasoning.”

Her lips press together now. She looks down at Maz, away from the small silver circle. “I can’t do this.”

“I would be afraid if you thought you could.”

She’s not a monster. That’s what Maz is telling her. And when Rey stares down at her hands, she doesn’t think she’s a monster yet either. She’s clean. The second that she steps on the platform, that time ends. Her life as she knew it, the pieces that she had held onto until this very second, were going to slip through her fingers. 

It seems like it should be so much easier to just let the Gamemakers kill her right away. 

But Rey isn’t that kind of a person either, someone who gives in so easily. She’s never curled up and rolled over and let life wash by. She’s held on, teeth sunk in, and she’s kept going. 

Her mouth opens, a million words on her tongue, a thousand sentences and questions and sentiments, but she can’t really think of what to say. An announcement comes on over the system. All tributes must step onto their platforms. The Games will begin shortly.

Her foot moves forward, a boot scraping against the floor. She stops and turns toward Maz, leaning down to give her stylist a quick, surprise hug. It’s done as quickly as it began, before Maz can even hug her back. Rey thinks that if she holds on for any longer, she’ll never let go. That her resolve right now will disappear. 

She steps onto the platform and blinks back the prick of tears threatening her. Her eyes burn, but only for a second. She blinks a few more times until the tightness in her chest subsides. 

Maz gives her a nod. “I don’t know if Han told you, but don’t go for the Cornucopia, Rey.”

“I won’t.”

“Just run.”

**ii.**

“Were you able to figure out the arena type?” Kylo Ren leans back against a wall, his eyes closed, arms crossed over his chest. There’s a buzz under his skin, a humming in his blood. 

He’s ready for this. Excited for this. And when he wins…

He will free his mother, and he will serve his president to the best of his ability. She’s a liability to him as a prisoner right now.

Poe makes a soft noise, tongue clicking against his teeth. “Of course I did. I don’t think you’ll like it, though.”

He expects the words to be said in some snarky manner, something to jab at him to rile him up. It’s what Poe Dameron is best at, of course. It’s not, though. His voice is flat and serious. He likes to believe he’s prepared, and so hearing his own mentor say it like he’ll be at a disadvantage makes him uncomfortable.

The announcement arrives, and knowing what he must do, Kylo Ren steps onto the platform.

“Tell me.”

Poe’s gaze, for a moment, is unfocused. It’s as if he’s staring right through him. Kylo Ren doesn’t have time for this, for whatever horrors Poe is reliving. He can go into a corner and cry about it later. Now he should _help_.

“I said--”

“I heard you.” Poe shakes his head, and it’s as if his soul is snapping back into his body. 

There is a part of him, distantly, buried deep, that wonders if this will be how he is when he wins the Games. 

“Desert. You’re going to be in the desert.”

Poe isn’t wrong. 

He _really_ doesn’t like that bit of information. “Anything else?”

“There’s a water source,” he whispers, stepping in closer now. “Not the Cornucopia.”

It’s more information than others will know, at least. Kylo Ren just has to get himself to this supposed water source. He needs to find it before anyone else does. He needs to secure it before the others can. Maybe he could use some of the other Career Tributes to his advantage in this case. They’d make for good protection, and then he can take them out, one by one, when they’re least expecting it. 

A glass tube envelopes him. He stares at Poe for what could be a final time, he realizes. It’s not a feeling he thought he would face, but there is something that settles heavy and hard in his stomach. The look Poe is giving him is soft and defeated, his shoulders slumped. 

He thinks his mentor should have more faith in him. 

Even as Kylo Ren thinks it, he lifts his hand in a wave. 

Poe’s brows rise up high on his forehead, but he waves back.

**iii.**

The sun is scorchingly bright once the platform stops moving. Rey immediately moves to put a hand to her brow to keep her eyes from feeling like they’re about to melt out of her skull. She blinks rapidly until her vision comes back, and she sees it. Golden sand, stretching on for ages. In the background, the sun shimmers off of it, and the heat rolls in waves. 

Directly in front of them is a stone structure, not something she would call a building. A pool of water rests in the middle of it, and around, Rey can see the light glint off various weapons and food in the shadows of the pillars. She bets there are protective clothes in that area, in the Cornucopia she was expressedly told to avoid. 

She’s seen Games. She knows what happens. 

Rey also knows that if she doesn’t gun for it and get something to at least protect her skin, she’s going to _die_. Water and protection is far more precious than a weapon to her. Being murdered by another kid is going to be a lot faster of a death than what this arena is going to do to her. 

She’s so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she misses any announcements. She’s waiting for it, for that final booming shot that signals the Games have finally begun. Her feet slide for a moment over the sand the second she bolts from her platform, but this is her kind of domain. It only takes that first mistake to right herself, and she is steps ahead of the competition before they can find their footing. The sand firms up the closer she gets to the Cornucopia, her brain moving a million miles a second. She grabs a cloak first, throwing items aside until she finds a water skin. 

Something hard slams into her, and Rey finds herself being thrown into the pool. Water floods her mouth, the shock of the attack causing a temporary paralysis. Hands push her down under the water, fingers at her throat. It’s the burning in her lungs that propel her back into action. Above her, her attacker looks murky through the water, but there’s no dark hair. For some reason, there’s relief in knowing that it’s not Kylo Ren attacking her. She digs her nails into the wrists of her attacker, using that leverage to move her body around and kick at their torso, hard.

It works, and the hands loosen around her neck. 

Rey thrashes around until she breaks the surface of the water, coughing it up hard enough until she pukes. Straight into the only water source that she can see. Muted shades of gray and brown dance along the edges of her vision, and while she can’t see what’s going on around her too well, she can hear. 

She wishes she couldn’t.

There are screams of pure terror and agony to her left, and it leaves her cold. 

_Don’t focus on it._

“Fuck,” her attacker screams before coming back at her again. It’s the girl Tribute from District 5, and her fist cracks into Rey’s nose.

Blood drips down her face, but she ignores the way it itches her skin. If she doesn’t react now, she’s going to die. And if she doesn’t get what she needs, she’s going to die. 

There’s an anger that blossoms in her that she’s been trying to control since her name was drawn back in District 12. It’s not a rage that’s meant for this girl, who is doing exactly what they’re meant to be doing. It’s a rage that is born from the system she’s been left in. The problem is, she’s taking it out on the girl as she pulls her fist back and slams it into her face in return. Before she can recover, Rey punches her again and again, until District 5 stumbles back with a wail. 

Rey pulls herself out of the pool, narrowly avoiding the slumping corpse of another kid stumbling toward her. 

She wipes her face clean with the wet cloak she somehow hasn’t let go of and runs. 


End file.
